22

I got dreams that say they missed you. They each say that they tearfully remember the day that my imagination sent you away and when asked why it said and I quote “for the simple fact that I cannot do better than that.” And my heart stopped you on the way out saying here, just in case you’re gone awhile here’s a key to let yourself back in and my soul gave you a picture of itself just so you’d know me when you saw me again and then, both of them cupped their hands to your ears and said “listen,” so that you above all others could here me, above my voice.

But now that you are here and life has had it’s way and done away with me, I have become emotionally inarticulate so, how do I tell you that the night we met is the day I made pecan praline my favorite, the first day I rode my bike off the block and found a different way back home and skated all the way back to my father without him having to catch me was the last day of may and every surprise birthday I held for myself was the moment I realized I would die for something the first time I made someone laugh, the very first time I figured out what words were, the first time I figured out what words could do so of course you became my first poem. That time I jumped in the pool went all the way to the bottom and realized I can’t swim every Saturday morning I woke the earliest to grab the remote and thereby achieve total supremacy, bathroom break be damned the moment I realized I would be better off alone if I couldn’t find anyone like you the day I found anyone like you the day I found out you existed, the first time we met before night we really met and I shudder to think that I almost missed it the first time I tried, the first time I lied for the right reason the time I held you while you slept and you allowed me the honor of letting my hand sojourn across your belly. Every time I woke up pissed because I had to get up and go to school and realized-it’s Saturday that you felt like the prayer before and after the prognosis. Like not asking for permission, like receiving permission. Like a blessing from God, like when I hear the Lord say he loves me in your silent smile like the reason you’re supposed to rage when the light dies like the way you draw your sword from your soul and slice through the skin of my inhibition just so that I could bleed out my regrets, you are the first time I fumbled around the back of mind, found the switch and turned on my imagination. You are the first time I touched my tongue to a 9-volt battery and then the second time because that shit felt good for the strangest reason. Like my bike the first day with out training wheels you taught me to push and help me learn balance. You’re the first time I got away with it, and if you were here to let it slip to your ear I would tell you are the first person I ever want to tell and your voice is the last thing I want to hear I want to bestow upon you my gratitude for this glow along with this odd grin I’ve been told I now possess that sneaks across my face when I’m looking. I remember loving you as black licorice; and even then you were sweet, bold and so intoxicating that my very tongue just wanted to hold you forever, and it was then I learned to appreciate you for who you are, though even now I am a novice, willing to learn. I remember you being 3 am on every December 25^th because technically that’s Christmas, you became the anticipation between each gift as well as over the next 364 days. I remember making sure my sister and brother got to bed, watching them sleep, falling in love with their peace and I knew then I would do anything to protect and preserve yours. I would wait for my mother to come home late from work, fix her a plate and as I watched her eat in peace I knew what it meant to be devoted to you. I listened to her girlfriends cry on her shoulder and swore I’d never become the man they spoke of though I do now acknowledge my potential. I remember the time my Alabama born father was so upset with me he didn’t even want to beat me, and it was in his stare I learned I would do anything for your forgiveness. I remember him always telling me to take care of my mother after the divorce, and I then learned that I only wanted you safe, and happy, even if it is not with me though I pray to God you do not leave. You were the first time I heard a good guitar riff and felt it in the back of my neck. I remember hearing the first song I ever truly loved and discovered what it would be like for you to hold me. I only aspire to offer you my name because every sweet vowel and consonant of yours is set in between the letters of my DNA so I could only hope for us to intertwine and become our own double helix and become the genetic blueprint for a love supreme. And still I ponder, on how to tell you that they told me that if I had to live without you yellow and blue would refuse to make green, that everything about you is love; and all the warm spaces in between, that flowers want to place you gently in their hair that if beauty was a place it would not be so without your soul there, that you have reminded me with your touch that I have skin that my heart and soul are happy you are back again I asked myself how do I begin when I realized-There are no words.